Comments on: Where it all started

By: it.gen.nz » The Rapture of the Nerds

it.gen.nz » The Rapture of the Nerds — Wed, 27 May 2009 21:02:57 +0000

[...] Today on Radio New Zealand National at 11:05 I talk about a lot of things, but my main topic is the Rapture of the Nerds – or, rather the technological singularity (as more sober commentators describe it). Who knew that it, like so much of modern computing, came out of Bletchley Park? [...]

By: Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Lawrence D'Oliveiro — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 06:13:25 +0000

After the war, GCCS became GCHQ. That’s where James Ellis worked. He came up with the idea of public-key cryptography in 1970 (five years before Whitfield Diffie), and in 1973 Clifford Cocks proved it with RSA, four years before Rivest, Shamir and Adleman thought of it.

Of course, this was all kept absolutely top secret for years afterwards. See Simon Singh’s “The Code Book”, published in 1999.

By: Christine Kirkpatrick

Christine Kirkpatrick — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 03:33:08 +0000

I used to walk and talk at the dog park with Mrs Caughey over the last years prior to her death. What a truly amazing woman. You talked this morning about the secrecy at Bletchley Park, well in the 25 happy years of marriage Mrs Caughey never told her husband about her participation in the programme. He passed away not knowing a thing about it. She was also required to get British Home Office permission before she could publish her book. I really miss her wonderful stories of an astonishing life.

By: colin

colin — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 03:11:10 +0000

Mark

I’m just speculating here about his motives – but he could always build more machines. The most important thing for him was that the Russians not find out that UK had been reading Lorenz and he presumably thought that there was a real risk of this post war.

Colin

By: Mark Harris

Mark Harris — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 02:24:08 +0000

“So, Churchill ordered that all the Colossus machines be utterly destroyed – reduced to fragments no bigger than a fist. ”

Just thinking about this, if Churchill wanted the Russions to use captured Lorenz machines, why order the destruction of the only machines that could break their traffic???

By: Mark Harris

Mark Harris — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 02:22:08 +0000

It really is amazing to see how far we’ve come in only 60 years. even in 40, when you think that a cellphone has many times the capability of the computers that landed Apollo on the moon. Between that and global warming, it is indeed both the best of times and the worst of times.

By: Garry J. Tee

Garry J. Tee — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 22:51:38 +0000

Thank you for your interesting and accurate account of Bletchley Park.
My friend Catherine Caughey (who died a year ago) was the first operator of COLOSSUS. I twisted her arm sufficiently that she overrode her oath of secrecy and wrote her autobiography: WORLD WANDERER, Kenya to Bletchley Park to New Zealand, Catherine M. Caughey, Auckland, 1996. That book was very favourably received, and in about 1999 Jack Perkins interviewed her on Spectrum (National Radio).
In 2006 Oxford University Press published a major book SECRETS OF BLETCHLEY PARK (ed. by Jack Copeland), including an account by David Bolam (still living in Auckland) telling how he built COLOSSUS. And Catherine Caughey told how she operated COLOSSUS – that part was very prominently featured in reviews.